The most important thing to remember about OTB games when you came from online is the specific OTB rules. All other is just a general chess advice like "Don't blunder".
1) Obey the touch-move rule. In online game you can click on pieces and move them somehow, draw arrows etc. On the board you don't have such an opportunity. If you took your piece, you must move with it, if you took opponents' piece, you must capture it (if there is no legal move with the piece, you are free, however). If you want to adjust the piece on the board you say "J’adoube"|"I adjust" clearly and in advance. Note that touch-move rule is not applicable if you just literally touched a piece accidentally with no intention to move it.
2) Hit the clock with the same hand you made a move. If you captured a piece, you usually hit the clock with this piece or having it in a hand.
3) When you castle, you move first the king, then the rook with the same hand, then hit the clock with the same hand. Castling is considered a king move by touch-move rule.
4) Try not to show your emotions if you saw something bad for you on the board. If you missed it, your opponent can miss it as well. But if he'll see you are nervous, he may start to search for tactics actively.
5) Don't annoy your opponent with draw offers. If you offered a draw once and he or she declined, just play till the draw (or whatever, lol) happens or your opponent will offer a draw to yourself.
6) Don't distract your opponent with a draw offer while he or she is thinking on the position. The most appropriate way to offer a draw is in the end of your own think. So you offer a draw, make a move immediately, hit the clock and wait till your opponent moves or agrees for a draw. Note that the opponent doesn't have to say anything to decline a draw, but can just move.
7) It is highly unsportive to simulate a deep thinking when you noticed that your opponent forgot to hit the clock after move. You may win a game using this, but will you be satisfied with such a win? I don't think so. If your opponent forgot to hit the clock, say him or her about that.
8) The game usually starts and ends with a handshake. Be friendly to your opponent independently of the result of the game.
Please someone correct me if something is wrong, I didn't played OTB for years.
"So you offer a draw, make a move immediately, hit the clock and wait till your opponent moves or agrees for a draw. Note that the opponent doesn't have to say anything to decline a draw, but can just move."
Actually it is like this: you make your move, offer the draw, press the clock, record your move on your scoresheet and add (=) to it to mark your draw offer. Your opponent records your move on his scoresheet and also adds (=) to it to acknowledge your draw offer. The he either accepts or makes a move to decline.
That is the technical part. I concur with
@FredtheCrusher do not offer or accept any draws in positions where there is play left.
play like a spider... a spider is everywhere...
>> I concur with FredtheCrusher do not offer or accept any draws in positions where there is play left.
Of course, I also agree with that. Especially if the position is unclear, one shouldn't accept a draw just because of the fear of losing.
@Grevozin No. If your opponent doesn't hit the clock, let them run out of time. It is a great space to plan tactics :D
Thanks for all of the advice! I'm slightly worried, however - the time control for the tournament is 90 minutes with a 30 second increment, and there are three rounds in one day. I've heard of people going hard on the first round and then tanking on the second because they don't have the energy left to calculate properly. What should I do to help keep my stamina up?
My common sense (and not my experience) would recommend to not thinking about chess outside the games then. You should analyze your games after the tournament if you don't want to get a chess overdoze. And also would recommend to resign in the positions where you see little hope for a draw and not try to think hard how to swindle if your position is really awful. You need this thinking energy for more prospective games. But this is double-edged advice of course, cause on your ratings opponents may blunder unexpectedly, and thus early resign can lose points.
International Master (IM) Simon Webb in his book Chess for Tigers identified five "secrets of swindling":[41]
(1) Be objective. The first prerequisite to a swindle is to be objective enough to realize early on when you have a lost position and start playing for a swindle while your position still has resources. If you wait until your position worsens and becomes hopeless, it will be too late.[42]
(2) Do not be afraid of losing. "Once you've accepted that your position is lost, you should be in a position of psychological strength." The worst that can happen is that you'll lose the game. The pressure is on your opponent to win a "won game", and it is your opponent who will be embarrassed if unable to do so.[43]
(3) Play actively. In a losing position, you cannot passively wait for your opponent to squeeze you to death. To stand a chance of pulling off a successful swindle, it is important to get the initiative, and this may involve sacrificing a pawn or two, or even the exchange, to activate your pieces.[44]
Grandmaster (GM) John Nunn adds a caveat: when in a bad position, one must decide between two strategies, which he calls "grim defence" and "create confusion."[45] "Grim defence" involves finding some way to hang on, often by liquidating to an ending. "Create confusion" entails trying to "gain the initiative, even at material cost, hoping to stir up complications and cause the opponent to go wrong."[45] Nunn cautions that, "If you decide to go for 'create confusion' then you should press the panic button sufficiently early to give yourself a reasonable chance of success. However, you should be sure that your position is really bad enough to warrant such drastic measures. In my experience, it is far more common to panic too early than too late."[45]
(4) Use the process of elimination. If you have a choice of several possible moves, and you see simple forced wins against all but one of those moves, you should play the one remaining move, and do so quickly. Again, the onus is on your opponent to find a way to win.[46] GM Parimarjan Negi observes, "the key is not to lose instantly." [47]
Negi also notes that the prospective swindler should "keep enough options on the board so your opponent has a chance to see ghosts and lose his bearings. The closer he gets to winning, the less he wants to work - exploit that state of mind!" [48]
(5) "Star quality." Webb uses this term to refer to the prospective swindler's manner at the chessboard. He explains, "if you're on the defensive, try to look completely dejected and uninterested, in the hope that your opponent will get careless; but once you start getting your pieces into action and complicating the position, look as confident as possible in an effort to frighten him." Further, when you set a trap, try to look normal, or even to appear nervous if you're sure that you can do so without arousing your opponent's suspicions.[49]
Such play-acting can be carried to extremes. GM Nikolai Krogius writes that Najdorf, in his game against Gligorić at the 1952 Helsinki Olympiad,[50] "left a pawn en prise in time trouble, and then desperately clutched his head and reached out as if wanting to take the pawn back. ... Gligorić took the pawn, and soon thereafter lost the game. It transpired that Najdorf had staged the whole pantomime to blunt his opponent's watchfulness. This can hardly be called ethical."[51]
(6) Time trouble is another consideration noted by various authors, including Webb himself. This has two aspects; the more obvious is exploiting the opponent's time pressure to perpetrate a swindle. Ali Mortazavi observes that "when the clock is ticking and time is pressing, a player's intuition is most likely to let him down, and this is where the swindler will get his opportunity."[52] He writes, "It is of the utmost importance that the swindler conducts himself in the appropriate fashion when his opponent is in time trouble."[53] This includes calmly reflecting rather than rushing one's moves.[54] GM Pal Benko notes that it is unpleasant for the player in time trouble to have to wait at the board, without daring even to get up to get a drink of water; this also makes the player in time trouble impatient, interferes with his concentration, and may cause him to mix up his planned responses.[55] Mortazavi also advocates that, in general, one should avoid playing the most obvious moves (one-move traps, obvious pawn breaks, checks, etc.), since the player in time trouble will likely have analyzed and have responses ready for them.[56]
However, both Benko and Webb advocate what Webb calls the "barrage technique": analyze a forced sequence of moves, then play them quickly.[57][58] Webb explains, "For example, if you have an obvious exchange of pieces available, don't play it immediately, but first decide on your next move, and then play them both at once. ... The aim is to catch your opponent with a move he hasn't considered. He will probably have considered most sensible moves in the position on the board, but since he doesn't know what your first move is going to be, he can't prepare replies to your second or third moves. The effect of an unexpected second move bashed out instantaneously can be shattering, even if it isn't particularly good."[59] (Both Benko and Webb emphasize that a player who has a winning position should not play quickly in his opponent's time pressure.[57][60] Likewise, GM Luděk Pachman remarks, "It is best to continue with one's sound strategic plan, and if one has the better position, it is completely illogical to fish in the murky waters of the opponent's time trouble."[61])
The second aspect of time trouble is that the player in time trouble may use it to facilitate a swindle. An example of this is Chigorin–Schlechter, cited below, where Schlechter's time trouble led Chigorin to believe that 44...Qc7+! was a time pressure-induced blunder rather than a trap. Mortazavi notes that although players in time trouble "rarely play the best moves, their opponents can also suffer from the excitement of the moment and play abysmally."[62] Krogius notes that a player who is unhappy with the course of the game sometimes "enters time trouble with the idea of exploiting it as a form of psychological warfare. This ... is often successful: the opponent, hoping to gain a quick victory during the other side's time trouble, becomes excited and loses the necessary critical approach. ... The result is a loss of detachment in controlling one's emotions which leads to serious errors, and thus the intentional use of time trouble is often justified.[63] However, Krogius warns that one should deliberately get into time trouble only after a detailed assessment of a number of considerations, such as the complexity of the position, the opponent's character, and the likelihood of errors on his part.[64]
Taken on wikipedia on Swindles
Pachman once deliberately let an hour run off his clock in order to use his own time trouble to lure his opponent into a swindle. In Pachman–Doda, Havana 1965, Pachman had earlier sacrificed an exchange for attacking chances. In the left-most position, Pachman had just played 27.Re1–e3?, to which his opponent responded with 27...Nd7–e5!. After that move, Pachman writes, "I was suddenly aware that my position was in ruins.[65] Black threatens to win a second exchange with 28...Ng4; since 28.fxe5 fxe5, threatening both 29...Rxf2 and 29...exd4, is hopeless for White, White must allow the knight to penetrate to d3, where it will threaten White's b and f pawns, leaving Black with a crushing position.[61] Pachman considered resigning immediately, but saw an opportunity for a possible swindle. Since Black could easily sidestep the swindle, leaving him with a winning position, it was essential for Black to think that the move introducing the swindle was a time-trouble induced blunder.[66] Pachman, who had over an hour for the next 13 moves, accordingly let his time go down to three minutes, "the absolute minimum required in case my opponent should err."[66] Pachman then played 28.Qd2, Doda responded 28...Nd3, and Pachman played 29.Nd1 immediately, "in my artificially created time trouble!"[66] Doda now could have kept a winning position with (for example) 29...Bg4.[66] Instead, he glanced at Pachman's clock, thought no more than 30 seconds, and played 29...Nxf4?, falling into Pachman's swindle.[66] Pachman played 30.Nf5!, initiating a strong attack (see right-most diagram).[66] Pachman writes, "The rest of the game followed at lightning speed, with my opponent in no way short of time but clearly depressed by the piece sacrifice."[66] The game concluded 30...gxf5 31.Rg3+ Kh8 32.Qxf4 Rb3? (better was 32...Qxe4 33.Qd2 f4 34.Rf3 and 35.Rxf4, with a strong attack) 33.Nc3 Rxb2 34.exf5 a5 35.Ne4 Re2 36.Nxf6 Rxf6? (after the better 36...Re5 37.Ng4 Rxf5 38.Nh6! Rf8 39.Rg5! wins) 37.Qg5 Re1+ 38.Kh2 1–0[67]
Swindles Continued
So when you are in a lost position, try to get your opponent to fall into a swindle.